Aug 15
Introduction: In Part I of Line 9 Protests Unmasked we explored the history of direct actions against Enbridge’s pipeline reversal from the original #SwampLine9 protest in 2013 to the most recent occupation of a construction site near Innerkip, Ontario. The protests started off with a bang but quickly faded out as the media and public …
Aug 07
Introduction: In November 2012 a group of leaders from NGOs, unions, academia, first nations and militant anarchist groups converged for a conference at the University of Toronto. Their goal was to come up with a strategy how to interfere with Enbridge’s plan to reverse their Line 9 pipeline- limiting Canada’s ability to export our oil …
May 27
On Saturday afternoon I got a tweet from Antonia Zerbisias at the Toronto Star. She and I’ve had a bit of a rivalry over the past year, Antonia got quite upset after I criticized her reckless support of militant activists who promote violence (she got quite nasty in return). So, considering Antonia’s past behavior (and …
May 02
Last December when a joint review panel recommended that the government approves Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline project, it didn’t take long for the activist community to declare war; promising a long hot summer of protests, blockades, and (potentially) sabotage and violence. Ben West of Forest Ethics encapsulated the mood well, telling the CBC: “If these …
Jan 22
Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May is a strange duck. On the one hand she’s one of Canada’s most outspoken figures against activist violence- consistently insisting that it’s “unproductive” and has a negative impact on the environmental movement. But equally, she so often comes out spouting nonsense in regards to the people committing the …
Jan 05
NOTE: Part I of this series can be found here If you’ve spent time reading through Idle No More’s website you’ve probably seen Spencer Mann’s name a few times. Mann is Idle No More’s webmaster, and appears to be responsible for the majority of the content posted on the site. Mann is the sole proprietor …
Jul 24
Two weekends ago members of Occupy Toronto gathered on the campus of Ryerson University for an 80 hour (dodgy) fundraiser, hoping to collect money to pay for the costs of operating their wireless data connection. Their event quickly degraded into a violent, racist and anti-Semitic hate fest. Later, after their fiasco became a national news …
Nov 21
Among the many things that trouble me most about Canadian politics these days, one of them is Justin Trudeau. I’m not sure if that’s because he’s too pretty, or because of my dislike of dynasties. I really don’t know too much about his policies yet- it’s something I keep planning to look into. But, my …
Oct 01
Someone shared an interesting video with me on Friday- it brings together a lot of my research on Canada’s problem with Black Bloc anarchists. It’s about George Horton, one of the vandals from the Toronto G20 who got caught kicking in the door of a police car. Horton was sentenced on Friday to ten months …
Jun 12
In a private member’s bill put to vote last week the Conservative government repealed the notorious Section 13 of Canada’s Human Rights Act. Section 13 banned communicating over telephone or the Internet of “any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.” It allowed for communicating truthful information- but people …